Radical Reformers podcast

This conversation is with Jane Lewington, the Chief Executive of Navigo, a Community Interest Company providing mental health services in Northeast Lincolnshire. Jane started her NHS career as an A&E receptionist and has worked her way up to become Chief Executive of a number of NHS Trusts, and now Navigo. Mental health as an issue has really shot up the agenda in recent times - but not many peopl...

This episode is with Andrew Burnell, the Group Chief Executive of City Health Care Partnership (CHCP). CHCP delivers community care, care home, pharmacy and primary care services in Hull East Riding and the North West of England. I loved this interview. Andrew is a very authentic and natural leader. The picture here is of him in a suit - but you are equally likely to find him in nursing uniform on...

This episode is with Ian Thomas, the Chief Executive of the Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames. The interview is in two parts: A lot of the conversations I have had so far on the podcast have focused on “people” services (community care, social care etc.). The first part of today’s interview is all about what makes Kingston a really exciting and vibrant “place” – the public sector infrastructur...

This week, the conversation is with Debbie Barnes, the Chief Executive of Lincolnshire County Council. This episode is a bit different in that it is my Mutual Ventures colleague, David Fairhurst, asking the questions in the main interview segment - and I think he does a great job! To be fair, he has an amazing guest. Debbie was formerly the Director of Children’s Services (DCS) in Lincolnshire bef...

This week’s episode is with Rachel Law, Chief Executive of PossAbilities, a Rochdale based social enterprise delivering adult social care services. Rachel is an amazingly inspiring person who manages to combine authentic leadership instincts and behaviours with management skills and an eye for detail, which is pretty rare! Rachel led the PossAbilities team as they “spun out” of Rochdale Council se...

This episode is with John O’Brien, Chief Executive of London Councils, the “umbrella” organisation for the London Boroughs. John explains how the different bodies in London (such as the Mayor, the GLA and individual councils) work with each other and with central government. He has worked with both Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan and explains the different styles and ways of working of those administ...

This episode is with Scott Darraugh, Chief Executive of Social AdVentures, a Salford based staff and community owned social enterprise delivering public health services. I always leave a meeting with Scott with a list of exciting ideas and this conversation is no different. He really is one of life’s truly inspirational people. Scott was one of the pioneers of the “public service mutual” movement...

On this episode I speak to Ade Adetosoye - Chief Executive of the London Borough of Bromley. We talk about Ade’s ideas for a new relationship between public services and communities and how the council can tap into and support efforts from individuals and organisations within communities. The experience of Covid-19 has accelerated these ideas. We also get some great insights into how the council a...

This episode is with Joanne Roney, the Chief Executive of Manchester City Council. It’s a fascinating discussion covering Manchester’s response to Covid-19 and the collective effort that will be needed from the city’s public services, businesses and communities to recover in a way that benefits everyone. This is particularly interesting in the context of Greater Manchester Joanne explains how the...

In many parts of the country, libraries have played a critical role in the response to Covid-19. Far from the traditional limited role of public book repository, many council library services are now vibrant community hubs combining physical meeting places with easily accessible digital resources. On this episode, I speak to Bruce Leeke who is the Chief Executive of Suffolk Libraries. It was the f...

Monique Carayol is the Director of Strategy and Transformation at Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare, an NHS Trust providing the care which sits between your GP and hospital (such as community nursing). At the time of recording we are still in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis - so key discussion topics include testing and vaccine roll out. As you can imagine, the past 10 months have been i...

On this episode, I speak to Julie Taylor who is the Chief Executive of the Thomas Deacon Education Trust. This was such an interesting interview which provided real insight into the challenges of running a family of schools during the Covid-19 pandemic. We cover everything from the rapid transition to remote/digital teaching to making sure that children (and their families) were getting well fed a...

This latest episode is a little different. Usually, I speak to operational public service leaders but this conversation is with one of the UK's leading public service reform thinkers, Prof. Sir Julian Le Grand from LSE. In a very wide ranging conversation we talk about his time working with Tony Blair in Number 10 and whether there are any parallels to be drawn from his experience and what’s going...

On this episode I speak to Lesley Hagger, the Executive Director of Childrens Services at Sandwell Council. Lesley and her team have been on the front line during the pandemic and we get a remarkable glimpse into what a struggle it has been over the past nine months. Social workers have had to adapt (e.g. meeting in gardens and finding ways to engage with children and families whilst kitted out in...

On this episode I speak to Alison Reid, the Chief Executive of Community Dental Services, which is a Community Interest Company based in Bedfordshire but in operation across the nation. Firstly, if you thought dental services had almost entirely shut down during the Covid-19 period - then you would be wrong! Community dentistry, which is a referral only service providing for the most vulnerable wa...

On this episode I catch up with John Niland. John is the former Chief Executive of Provide, a Community Interest Company delivering community care services primarily in Essex but also across the country. Every time I speak to John, I feel I understand what public services should be for and how they should be delivered a little bit better – and this conversation is no exception. John talks about hi...

Trevor Doughty is an extremely experienced and accomplished children’s services leader. He is currently the Director of children’s sector-led improvement at the Local Government Association. Before that Trevor was the Director of Childrens Services in Cornwall where he led the service from an OFSTED rating of Inadequate to Outstanding before retiring at the end of 2019. We discuss the need for a s...

In this, the very first episode of Radical Reformers, I speak to Sophie Humphreys. Sophie is a Radical Reformer in the truest sense of the word. She is the co-founder of a number of innovative public service programmes which support extremely vulnerable and hard to reach people. That could be young people who have gotten into a re-offending cycle (WIT - Whatever It Takes) or women who have had mul...